How long until DRS causes a serious accident?

So back when DRS was brought in one of the fundamental requirements was that if it failed it failed in the closed position. However we saw on Schumacher's car in Canada that it IS possible for the system to jam in an open state, despite the efforts of several burly mechanics to slam it shut (hardly surprising given the wind loading the actuator has been designed to deal with). Now, luckily the team was able to tell Michael over the radio that the DRS was open when it shouldn't have been, but can you imagine what would happen say going into Ascari at Monza if DRS stayed open under braking? We could well be looking at a serious accident as the driver bangs on the brakes at 200+mph with next to no rear downforce. No doubt this would be followed by a knee jerk FIA reaction probably involving slashing downforce by 50% the following season.

So back when DRS was brought in one of the fundamental requirements was that if it failed it failed in the closed position. However we saw on Schumacher's car in Canada that it IS possible for the system to jam in an open state, despite the efforts of several burly mechanics to slam it shut (hardly surprising given the wind loading the actuator has been designed to deal with). Now, luckily the team was able to tell Michael over the radio that the DRS was open when it shouldn't have been, but can you imagine what would happen say going into Ascari at Monza if DRS stayed open under braking? We could well be looking at a serious accident as the driver bangs on the brakes at 200+mph with next to no rear downforce. No doubt this would be followed by a knee jerk FIA reaction probably involving slashing downforce by 50% the following season.

Oh, it ruins racing too.

Ban it please.

It's just another part of the car that can break, there's many parts that, if broke, would cause an accident. Plus 'next to no' rear downforce is a bit of an exaggeration.

I don't like it either, and it should be banned on sporting grounds. It's a regulation created under a previous set of regulations. It was out of the date the moment it was implemented. However, I also agree with this:

It's just another part of the car that can break, there's many parts that, if broke, would cause an accident. Plus 'next to no' rear downforce is a bit of an exaggeration.

A DRS-related accident would be especially sad because it was only implemented to cover-up FIA's failure to achieve an objective they set for 2009> reduce the turbulence behind a car so that a following car would be able to close up without losing control and try a pass safely. So basically, another case of negligence by them that, unfortunately, is only dealt with after an accident.

Banning DRS would cut down overtaking by how much? Any stats on how many were DRS related overtaking? If its the majority then for sure there will be that "faster car stuck behind slower car" thingy or "there was nooo overtaking, so boring" etc etc.

Banning DRS would cut down overtaking by how much? Any stats on how many were DRS related overtaking? If its the majority then for sure there will be that "faster car stuck behind slower car" thingy or "there was nooo overtaking, so boring" etc etc.

Unfortunately, most of the times DRS helps the overtake when a slower car has somehow gotten ahead of a faster car. It punishes the good drivers in bad cars and helps the front runners when a mistake is made. If it wasn't for Alonso getting stuck behind Petrov in 2010, I don't think DRS would've been introduced in the first place.

You have to have faith in the DRS closing lap after lap when using it at a high speed straight. You saw what happened when Schumacher missed a relative low speed chicane due to lack of DF. It is not the first and it sure won't be the last time his system fails. Mercedes has the most failprone system it seems.

DRS has caused serious and less serious accidents. Without DRS Schumacher wouldn't have knocked his front wing off at Silverstone last year. The crash with Senna wouldn't have happened. The speed difference was very high coming to a braking zone.

DRS, by definition, is unsafe. The fact that the officials reserve the right to turn it off in inclement weather and certain situationsspeaks volumes. How many other parts of a modern Formula One car can be deactivated beyond the team's controls?

For example, I have never heard anyone being told by race control during bad weather "your engine is being turned down to 16000 rpm"; "you must pit and change to wet tyres", "your fuel mix is being made more lean". From the team, maybe; but never from the officials. That is because it is a maxim of motorsport that you race using every tool available to you. You push to the maximum in the dry; you push to the maximum in the wet. That Charlie Whiting can decide to weld part of your toolbox shut just elucidates the artificiality of it.
Imagine the 110m Hurdles at the Olympics. Semi-finals are dry so the race is run as normal. Two hours later its raining heavily so the race coordinator says to the athletes in the final: "It's quite slippery out there, so we've taken away the hurdles. It's just gonna be a straight sprint now".

The myopia of the Formula One fiefdom is astounding. Instead of addressing the problem, they find a short term workaround. The cars have a mechanical cancer (dirty air) which prevents overtaking and instead of chemotherapy (stricter regs on the rear of the car) to try and deal with the problem, Bernie and co. prefer a spot of wig shopping (DRS) to cover it up.

It's funny how all the Alonso fans are now screaming ban the DRS. Just love it.

Why every real concern about safety and fairness of the competition must be turned into a fanboy blabber? It was MS who could end in a wall, not Alonso.Yes, F1 is dangerous by nature, but the more gimmicks there are on the car, the higher the probability of failure. Imagine a driver approaching a corner at max speed with DRS failing to close, and in the braking zone he finds that there's no braking effect from the rear wing. Wheel brakes? Yes, but without downforce they are also less effective.

I always wince whenever cars pull out from behind other cars while using DRS on a straight. There have been some very dramatic attempts to block this by certain drivers and I fear it's only a matter of time before we have another Webber/Kovalainen situation where front wheel makes contact with rear wheel and someone ends up in the air.

Banning DRS would cut down overtaking by how much? Any stats on how many were DRS related overtaking? If its the majority then for sure there will be that "faster car stuck behind slower car" thingy or "there was nooo overtaking, so boring" etc etc.

Easy to fix

Instead of a DRS zone, make it a "KERS zone". Disable KERS or allow double power output for chasing car.

Yes, opens a whole new can of worms.

I thought that DRS was fairly safe until I saw MSC fail open. If he was going into the final chicane it would have been a massive accident instead of a grassy trip.

I always wince whenever cars pull out from behind other cars while using DRS on a straight. There have been some very dramatic attempts to block this by certain drivers and I fear it's only a matter of time before we have another Webber/Kovalainen situation where front wheel makes contact with rear wheel and someone ends up in the air.

I'm pretty sure we had passing on the straights with a 15kph speed difference long before DRS.

I always wince whenever cars pull out from behind other cars while using DRS on a straight. There have been some very dramatic attempts to block this by certain drivers and I fear it's only a matter of time before we have another Webber/Kovalainen situation where front wheel makes contact with rear wheel and someone ends up in the air.

I think places with long braking zones would be a safer place to have DRS failure as car wouldn't simply slow down enough to actually turn at the turning point. Worst case scenario would be at fast one gear down / flat out or close corners corners when the car is on the edge anyway so loss of downforce at the back would spin the car out of the track. Although maybe the driver would be able to save it as it wouldn't be anywhere near as dramatic as a complete lack of rear wing. Anyways, my main issue with DRS is that some of the DRS zones are just too damn long. It should help to close the gap, not to provide a free pass by.

I always wince whenever cars pull out from behind other cars while using DRS on a straight. There have been some very dramatic attempts to block this by certain drivers and I fear it's only a matter of time before we have another Webber/Kovalainen situation where front wheel makes contact with rear wheel and someone ends up in the air.

Given that that accident happened without DRS why use it as an example?

Why every real concern about safety and fairness of the competition must be turned into a fanboy blabber? It was MS who could end in a wall, not Alonso.Yes, F1 is dangerous by nature, but the more gimmicks there are on the car, the higher the probability of failure. Imagine a driver approaching a corner at max speed with DRS failing to close, and in the braking zone he finds that there's no braking effect from the rear wing. Wheel brakes? Yes, but without downforce they are also less effective.

But it's not the first time that the DRS has proven to be problematic. It just that never before have so many people screamed about it. And it's mostly one group of fans.

I think there has been a consistent group on here (including me) calling for this gimmic to be banned from the very start.

I wanting racing, not seeing a car blast past another car down the straight aided by that piece of crap.

But the problem is that we had examples of car being 1-2s faster but being unable to pass. How do you fix that.

Schumacher overtook lots of people in Monaco 2006. It is possible to overtake, only it is an art like defending. Pressuring another driver into in a mistake to get past. Due to regulations cars are more akin. When there are 16 cars within one second, when do you expect they overtake each other? All the differences in power output have been hammered out. Ferrari could get away with a less aero car, but a stronger engine to make up for it.

I agree with the OP.

DRS, by definition, is unsafe. The fact that the officials reserve the right to turn it off in inclement weather and certain situationsspeaks volumes. How many other parts of a modern Formula One car can be deactivated beyond the team's controls?

For example, I have never heard anyone being told by race control during bad weather "your engine is being turned down to 16000 rpm"; "you must pit and change to wet tyres", "your fuel mix is being made more lean". From the team, maybe; but never from the officials. That is because it is a maxim of motorsport that you race using every tool available to you. You push to the maximum in the dry; you push to the maximum in the wet. That Charlie Whiting can decide to weld part of your toolbox shut just elucidates the artificiality of it. Imagine the 110m Hurdles at the Olympics. Semi-finals are dry so the race is run as normal. Two hours later its raining heavily so the race coordinator says to the athletes in the final: "It's quite slippery out there, so we've taken away the hurdles. It's just gonna be a straight sprint now".

The myopia of the Formula One fiefdom is astounding. Instead of addressing the problem, they find a short term workaround. The cars have a mechanical cancer (dirty air) which prevents overtaking and instead of chemotherapy (stricter regs on the rear of the car) to try and deal with the problem, Bernie and co. prefer a spot of wig shopping (DRS) to cover it up.

Not true. Teams are obliged to use wet tires with a SC start in the rain. I vaguely remember Ferrari getting a DT penalty for being on the wrong tires years ago. Now they just loiter behind the SC (if they can keep up due to deg. ) until it is dry enough for inters.

I'm pretty sure we've seen a vast increase in this happening since the introduction of DRS though.

Overtaking on the straights? Yup. Dangerous blocking, no. If anything, passing on the straights with DRS are actually safer than without because of the higher speed difference making defensive driving a waste of time.

There's nothing wrong with not liking DRS, but this safety argument is pretty ridiculous. Sure it can fail and screw up the balance of the car, but arguing for a ban because of the danger kinda reminds me of this:

I'm pretty sure we've seen a vast increase in this happening since the introduction of DRS though.

We have seen several accidents caused by DRS.. where a driver once committed to a drs pass is going so much faster than the car in front that they are unable to avoid tail-ending them when the defending driver does anything unexpected.

The system makes racing worse (drivers now avoid, and are instructed to avoid, passing anywhere else), is somewhat dangerous, doesn't usually even work as intended.. It seems like all lose to me.